What Is Wellbeing?
Wellbeing is concerned with how we feel, the thoughts we are having and how these impact our personal and social behaviour. It includes how happy, comfortable and mentally and physically healthy we are and how able we are to cope with the challenges of life. Our wellbeing is influenced by overall life satisfaction, sense of purpose and feelings of being in control.
Wellbeing and Education
Working in education can, like any workplace, have an impact on staff wellbeing - both positive and negative. It is important that educational establishments make the wellbeing of all those that work within them a priority. Happy staff are more productive, produce a higher standard of work, have less time off and are more able to support the development of positive wellbeing in the children they work with. Here's some staff wellbeing resources for you to use..
Staff wellbeing has been found to be higher when:
- Staff feel they are an important and valued member of the school community;
- Staff feel supported in their role and personally;
- Staff feel in control of their workload and home life, organisation packs can be great for this!
- Educational establishments support the career goals of all staff;
- Staff feel their skills are well-placed within their job role;
- The achievements of staff are recognised;
- Their place of work makes wellbeing a priority;
- Staff have the opportunity to socialise and develop supportive personal and professional relationship with their colleagues;
- Educational establishments provide training and development to help staff understand what impacts their wellbeing, use training resources like this Six Weeks to Wellbeing pack to enhance wellbeing.
The most effective way to positively impact staff wellbeing is to make it a whole establishment focus - something that underpins the entire workings of the setting. Creating a Staff Wellbeing Policy and establishing a Cellbeing committee is a great place to start! Here's how you can get started.
Other things that can be done are:
- Making meetings a positive experience;
- Encouraging staff to be more physically active;
- Encouraging staff to interact socially, for example you can incorporate a joint academic calendar to display in the staff room.
- Discussing, as a staff, how workload can be reduced and how you can work smarter, not harder.
However, taking time to carry out simple acts of kindness can also have a positive impact on wellbeing. Examples include:
- Notice if someone hasn’t come to the staff room and check in with them.
- Set up a ‘Staff Shout Out’ board celebrating the small, but important, things that staff do and encourage all the staff to contribute.
- Helping staff to get enough sleep and wind down!
Whatever change you can make to enhance the wellbeing of the staff in an educational establishment will have a positive impact on all in the setting and the wider school community. Find all the resources that you could possibly need to complete your staff wellbeing toolkit, from our partners Twinkl, here!
.ashx?h=225&iar=0&mh=411&mw=730&w=400)
.ashx?h=122&iar=0&mh=122&mw=730&w=730)
.ashx?h=340&iar=0&mh=411&mw=730&w=600)
.ashx?h=118&iar=0&mh=122&mw=730&w=730)
